The present disclosure relates generally to information handling systems, and more particularly to an early boot video display system for information handling systems.
As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
Information handling systems such as, for example, switch computing devices, server computing devices, laptop/desktop computing devices, and other computing devices known in the art, perform a boot operation when powered on. The boot operation includes a series of processes that are performed to initialize the computing device before an operating system is loaded. During such boot operations, status reports for the boot operation and/or errors that occur during the boot operation may be provided to a user through a graphical user interface (GUI) that may be presented on a display subsystem of the computing device after a video controller for that display subsystem has been initialized by a basic input/output system (BIOS) in the computing device. A primary processing system in the computing device that loads the BIOS may update the GUI as the boot operation progresses or if any error occurs. However, computing systems now often include a secondary processing system in addition to the primary processing system. This secondary processing system may perform security functions during the boot operation that occur before the primary processing system is loaded and executes the BIOS code. Thus, in systems that include such secondary processing systems, many boot operations and/or errors may occur before the dynamic GUI has been initiated such that it may continually update the progress of the boot operations. One conventional solution to this problem is to provide an application programming interface (API) for the BIOS that allows for the initialization of a display device and the display of a static image before the primary processing system executes the BIOS code, functionality that may be enabled by providing a byte code program to an interpreter that executes prior to memory initialization. However, such static images lack the ability to provide progress updates for the boot operation, and/or report errors that may occur during the boot operation.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide an improved early boot display system.